


The Light is Burning Low

by IonFusion



Series: We're Not Promised Tomorrow [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Female Umino Iruka, Quote fic, Requited Unrequited Love, Sad Ending, Songfic, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24068464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IonFusion/pseuds/IonFusion
Summary: Kakashi didn’t know he was in love with her until she was already gone.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Series: We're Not Promised Tomorrow [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735153
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	The Light is Burning Low

**Author's Note:**

> Song for this fic is "Let Her Go" by Passenger. Unlike the first fic, this song actually fits pretty darn well. 
> 
> ...  
> “Love comes unseen; we only see it go.” ~Henry Austin Dobson

Kakashi, like all veteran shinobi, was used to the idea that any mission could be his last. He had spent his entire career with that thought sitting in the back of his mind, but it wasn’t ever a hindrance to his work. It was just another part of life, like a blue sky or a green tree or Naruto’s smile. 

Now, the silver-haired jounin had loved in his life; he was no stranger to that cruel mistress despite what some of his enemies - even some of his comrades - might think. 

He had loved his father, who had committed seppuku when Kakashi was eight. He had loved Rin, who had killed herself by his hand (literally). He had loved Obito, though that had only come after and was nearly indistinguishable from the guilt and regret. He had loved Minato and Kushina, who had died protecting their village and newborn son. He loved Sasuke, who had rejected his teachings and turned traitor. He loved Sakura, who grew beyond what he could offer her and was now too far above him to be considered one of ‘his’. He loved Naruto but, who didn’t? Even if it hurt that the boy had surpassed  _ all _ of them in the most surprising ways, had left them behind in his wake even as he turned and reached to pull them back up. 

So, Kakashi was no stranger to love. He just associated it with loss.

But no shinobi was a stranger to loss. Everyone he knew had lost something, and there were absolutely no exceptions; the only exceptions lie in how they all  _ dealt _ with those losses. 

Naruto, for example, soldiered on with a smile and refused to give up. Sakura, too. Sasuke let himself become bitter until hatred overcame the love. Tsunade fell to drink and gambling and, even now, could be found staring at the Knucklehead of Konoha as if she were seeing some long-forgotten ghost. Kakashi himself buried the hurt behind eye-smiles and Icha Icha, accepting only the comfort of his pack (and often not even that). They coped, and they lived, but they changed. 

Everyone had heard of Umino Iruka - or, more accurately, the Prankster Queen of Konoha. In her youth she had been infamous, a hellion to put Naruto to shame. It wasn’t until years later after Kakashi and Iruka had been dragged by Naruto several times to Ichiraku Ramen that the jounin put name and reputation together, and suddenly everything seemed to make sense. 

Iruka had dealt with the loss by hiding it behind smiles and pranks and laughter. She had grown more mature after becoming a genin and later a chunin, and then she was instated as a teacher at the Academy. Now she handled loss by teaching her students as best she could so that they might not be  _ one _ of those losses. 

Kakashi thought, idly, that of all the shinobi in the village other than the Hokage, Umino Iruka, because she loved those kids so dearly, had and would continue to lose more than anyone else. Few graduates became genin, and of those even fewer survived their first few years, and even fewer made it to chunin, and even  _ fewer _ through  _ those _ first few years, and then even  _ fewer _ to tokujou or jounin. Iruka felt each loss, each death, each shattered dream as keenly as her own. 

Yet she smiled, and soldiered on, and kept teaching. 

It was admirable, what she did, especially since Kakashi wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do the same. Sometimes he imagined teaching dozens of children, then projected his familial love for his own genin onto each imagined child - and the weight of each loss crippled him despite it being hypothetical. Sharingan no Kakashi would never be able to handle the feeling of failing all those children. 

But it wasn’t just her students that Iruka loved so much, he realized. Umino Iruka, when given the opportunity, fought just as hard as Naruto himself to protect her home. She was a wiz at fuinjutsu, especially barrier seals, so she was sometimes called on as part of the backup teams sent out to fight. 

He recognized a certain sort of anxiety after the Pein Assault the few times she had to leave the village, even if it was his squad she was supporting - but like any good shinobi he pushed it down and soldiered on. After all, he knew that all shinobi were tools for their village - tools that could be killed and killed willingly if it meant their village was safe. 

The jounin had come to terms with that long ago. 

After actually dying, though… (dying to give Iruka time to escape, dying to protect her even though he would have done it for anyone in the village)...

That anxiety sat there in his chest, rigid and unmoving even when he buried it under loyalty and determination and stoic apathy. He thought her a loyal shinobi, skilled and diverse, and a good friend. Kakashi felt honored to have died protecting her because there were very few people that deserved to live as much as she did (and there weren’t many he could say that about either).

(He had noticed a tightness around her eyes when she watched him leave on his own missions now, but the flip-side to his genius refused to see underneath the underneath; the Pein Assault had affected everyone, and it wasn’t inconceivable that it had affected them the same way.)

(Kakashi also refused to consider that their ritual of informing each other when they were leaving on a mission had extended with a surprising rigor past Naruto’s return.)

When Iruka left with a small contingent of tokujou and lower jounin on what was supposed to be a simpler mission to catch a lesser nukenin, Kakashi smothered the familiar stab of anxiety and offered an easy wave and eye-smile; he forced himself to keep his Sharingan eye from recording the warmth of her eyes and smile as if they might be the last he saw of her.

_ Iruka never came back. _

Yes, Kakashi was no stranger to love, but he was even  _ more  _ intimate with loss, though the concepts were so inseparably entwined. 

So it made sense that, if Kakashi so closely associated love with loss, that he would only realize he loved Iruka after she was already gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> I mentioned this in the A/N for Love You, but I'm open to any ideas for other fem!Iruka fics you guys might want to see. I have two whole pages of prompts ready to be used, most of them multi-chapter worthy, but if you guys have anything specific you'd like to see, please let me know. I've also been practicing my digital art skills, so if you'd like a piece of art rather than an actual fic, I can do that, too (for free, lol, since I'm not very good yet). 
> 
> Another big thank you to hades_bitch for editing this for me :) I couldn't find a way to cut back on commas, so sorry about that, y'all. *shrug*
> 
> Please don't hesitate to leave a review! I love reading them, and you guys always make me smile. Even if you just leave some fic suggestions for me to read, that's great, too. 
> 
> Love you guys, and stay careful! :)


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